Traditionally, United States policies for providing telecommunications services and for billing for such services have required independent billing with regard to the content of the communication. Regulatory and social factors which have influenced separate treatment of such calls are defined as the different economic and/or social values of data calls as contrasted with voice calls. However, pressures exists to minimize charges for minimum local services and to insure that even high usage local services remain within the economic means of the customers, particularly the elderly and the poor.
A partial solution to this problem has been implemented in some cases by examining the destination number of telephone calls as part of the bill calculation process; this process then distinguishes calls known on the basis of the called number to be data calls from other calls and therefore gives such calls appropriate billing treatment.
Another problem, however, has been that many of the current telephone network providers are designed for voice calls, which average five minutes or less per call; and therefore, the network providers bill on a per minute charge rate. With more and more people using telephone lines for data services, the per minute charges for switching data traffic to provide the online services has become very expensive. Additionally, some existing fixed rate data services have offered a much higher fixed rate charge for providing online telecommunications services and use of vertical services, such as special transmission facilities or stations.
A need exists for a system and method to provide data calls to a subscriber using an integrated services digital network (ISDN) for telecommunications and for providing the service over trunk lines for billing at a fixed or planned rate per service period to avoid per minute charges.
A need exists for recognizing data calls and configuring a data calls system so that different affordable charges and/or flat rate charging per service period can be applied to such telecommunications that might use vertical services, such as special transmission facilities or base stations.
The embodiments meet these needs.